GOP frosh slams classmates

Freshman Republican Rep. Michael Grimm called out conservatives in his own party Monday, accusing opponents of a short-term budget bill of missing an opportunity to win the battle, while risking a government shutdown.

Meanwhile, a growing chorus of conservative members of the conference are declaring they won’t vote for the three week funding measure. On Monday, Republican Study Committee chair Jim Jordan announced he’d join the group of Republicans planning to vote against the stop gap spending bill—setting the stage for a difficult vote for Republican leaders on Tuesday.

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“The extreme wing of the Republican Party is making a big mistake with their flat-out opposition to a short-term continuing resolution. They’re not looking at the big picture, and the last thing we want to do is become like Nancy Pelosi in the last Congress, where it was ‘my way or the highway,’” Grimm wrote in a statement released Monday.

“I know that there is some opposition to working with Senate Democrats from the extreme right of the tea party who would rather see a government shutdown than pass a short-term solution; however, as long as we continue to cut spending each time, we are keeping our promise to the American people to reduce the deficit and fix the economy,” Grimm said, admonishing those in his chamber who would “bow to the extreme right or left.”

Discontent over the passage of another continuing resolution has been growing in the House Republican conference for a week. Freshmen and conservatives warn that there must be resolution soon on a budget funding measure that extends through the end of the fiscal year, so that the lawmakers can move on to bigger targets: the fiscal year 2012 budget and the tricky vote on the debt ceiling.

“Democrats control both the Senate and the White House, and it’s time they stopped dithering. We need swift action to deal with spending for the rest of this year,” Jordan said in a statement Monday. “We need to stop sending taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, and we need to defund ObamaCare. And we need to start tackling next year’s budget, the debt-ceiling, and other challenges standing in the way of job creation. We’ve made some solid first downs on spending. Now it’s time to look to the end zone.”